We’ve put a rover on Mars, heck, we’ve got a few of them up there. What’s the next step, before the inevitable invasion by humans? A helicopter obviously! Well, more specifically, drones that can help the poor ground-shackled rovers get a better idea of what lies ahead in their travels.

22 January 2015

During Microsoft’s demo of its fascinating holographic headset HoloLens today, the company barely mentioned the coolest way it’s already using it: to develop software with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory that will let scientists explore and work on the Red Planet remotely.

17 January 2015

Following speculation earlier this week, scientists have announced that they have found the missing British Mars lander, Beagle, on the surface of the Red Planet — although we’re still no closer to finding out what went wrong during landing.

10 January 2015

Briefly: The red planet just took a hit. This image shows a new impact crater in Elysium Planitia, discovered by the HiRISE imager aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. You can see a very distinct crater rim with ejecta that’s much darker than the surroundings. NASA believes that the distribution of the ejecta suggests that whatever it was that hit the planet struck from the west. [NASA]

6 January 2015

Welcome to Reading List. Another year and another week means another roundup of great stories that might have squeaked by during the holiday. We’ve got some speculative doom and gloom, a look into the future of one of NASA’s Mars rovers, and a profile of a man who is clickbait personified. Happy New Year and happy reading.

4 January 2015

NASA has had some truly bad luck lately, underscored by the cancellation of an ambitious balloon mission due to a leak last week. Even Opportunity, the decade-old Mars rover that has surprised everyone by exploring for more than a decade after its mission ended, is showing signs of slowing down. Now, NASA has a plan to hack it.

3 January 2015

For as long as we’ve been snapping pics on the surface of Mars, we’ve been claiming to see anything and everything in its dusty, red terrain. Look at that blur; is that the silhouette of a lady Martian? A rogue military helmet from World War I? An actual human finger? Nope! It’s a rock. It’s always a rock.

26 December 2014

There are myriad reasons why getting from Earth to Mars is hard, but chief among them are two 1) the massive amount of fuel needed and 2) a launch window that is limited to every 26 months, when the two planets are in optimal alignment. A couple of mathematicians have calculated a new path to Mars that solves both — and it’s far from a straight line.

17 December 2014

Ever since Curiosity landed on Mars, it has been in search of methane. It couldn’t find any for years, until a new set of experiments unveiled today that detected large spikes in methane. Scientists have no idea what caused the spikes, but the most intriguing explanation is “life on Mars.”